Knower of Names
by Jedi Buttercup
Summary: Slayer meets archaeologist on a plane back from England, phone numbers are exchanged, and prophecies unfold. COMPLETE.
1. Knower of Names

**Title**: Knower of Names 

**Author**: Jedi Buttercup

**Disclaimer**: The words are mine; the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.

**Rating**: T

**Summary**: _By the time the plane reached New York, where she would change to a plane to Cleveland and he one to Denver, Buffy felt almost as though she'd known him for years_. 3000 words.

**Spoilers**: B:tVS post-"Chosen", Stargate SG-1 through 10.5 "Uninvited".

**Notes**: Backup SG-BtVS Ficathon Entry, for Lisette. Buffy centric, Buffy/Daniel-ish, post-"Chosen", and as in character as I could make it.

* * *

_MITCHELL: What about Jackson?_

_LANDRY: Still in England. Seems he's met some Lord or Earl with a private library of ancient reference material on Merlin and Morgan Le Fay._

--Stargate SG-1, 10.5 "Uninvited"

* * *

Buffy settled into seat 16F with a sigh, already weary before the transatlantic leg of her journey had even begun. She'd been hoping she'd be able to take Air Willow back to the States, but her friend had been summoned for urgent Council business in South America the week before, and the Slayer had been left to take the long way home. For a woman with instincts geared more toward "predator" than "prey", having to sit still in what amounted to a large, traveling cage for so many hours with so many other people was always a strain on her nerves.

She bent to tuck her carry-on bag beneath the seat in front of her, then leaned back and reached up, adjusting the little air blower vent thing so it wasn't running full blast right on top of her. The window sash to her right was open, giving her a ring-side view of the baggage handler's efforts to load the plane with luggage; she watched for a moment, wincing as one particularly burly example of the male species tossed a familiar duffle on the conveyor belt leading up to the cargo hatch, then turned away with a sigh. Hopefully, all the little crystal bottles of holy water inside would be all right; she'd have put them in her carry-on to prevent unnecessary breakage, but she'd been a little worried about trying to get all that liquid through security. There was something wrong with a world where it was harder to get _water_ past the guards than the sharpened stakes she habitually carried.

"Long day?" a sympathetic voice asked to her left, as shuffling sounds announced the arrival of 16E.

Buffy turned to get her first look at the person who'd be sharing her breathing space for the next umpty hours. She registered the height first-- six feet or so-- and then the physique; the guy was wearing jeans and a leather jacket over a plain t-shirt that clung to a fit, muscular body. If she'd been a little less exhausted, the sight might have changed her attitude about the entire trip; who wouldn't want to sit next to _that_ for a lengthy journey? She glanced up then, wondering idly whether such an attractive body came with an equally attractive face-- and froze as recognition kicked in.

"Dr. Jackson," she somehow managed to say. "What a surprise!"

_In more ways than one,_ she thought, astonished. _Urgent Council business my ass!_ She was going to kill Willow the next time she saw her. No wonder the witch had insisted on booking Buffy's tickets herself "as an apology for bailing".

"Ms. Summers?" the scholar replied, seeming as startled as she was. Then a quick smile spread across his features, crinkling the corners of his blue eyes. "I didn't know you were leaving so soon. It's good to see you again."

He held out his hand to shake with hers, and she took it automatically, blushing a little as she smiled back. "Buffy, please. We're going to spend several hours in each other's company, after all."

"Daniel," he offered in return, squeezing her hand a little before letting go.

He finally looked away then, stowing a leather satchel and carefully wedging that impressive frame of his into his assigned seat. If she leaned just a little to the left, Buffy would practically be sharing his body heat. She watched him in appreciation for a moment, then realized she was staring and hastily glanced away, watching through the window as the baggage handlers transferred the last of the luggage from their cart into the plane's underbelly. What had Willow been thinking? If she'd thought the plane ride was going to be too long _before_, it was going to be even longer now.

She made a face at her reflection in the hard plastic of the window at that. Of course she knew what Willow had been thinking; during the week before Willow's departure, they'd had half-a-dozen teasing conversations about the "hot American" who'd come to study in the tame half of Giles' library. She hadn't had any real excuse to talk to him-- unlike Willow, she didn't tend to read the kind of books Giles kept unless she had to-- but they'd exchanged their fair share of good mornings and how are yous and smiles of greeting. Willow had been thrilled to see her interested in someone again after her last severe romantic disappointment; Buffy had laughed it off as vacation affection, a safe crush on a cute guy that she knew she'd never see again. Obviously, Willow had taken it into her head to nix the "never see again" part of that equation.

Well, nothing for it. Buffy would be glad when the plane was in the air and she could pull something out of her bag to distract herself with, but until then, small talk would have to do. She took a deep breath, then turned back to him.

"So," she asked brightly. "How did the research go?"

His smile turned a little rueful. "Not as well as I'd hoped," he said. "Dr. Giles has an impressive collection of reference material, some of which I'd never seen before, but unfortunately none of it directly referenced the information I was looking for."

"Ouch," she replied sympathetically. "That's a lot of time and travel for not much return. What were you looking for?"

"Well, that depends," he said, enigmatically.

"Depends on what?" she asked, her curiosity piqued by his reply.

"On whether you're just asking to be polite, or whether you really want to know," he said, the corners of his eyes crinkling again in amusement. "I'm reliably informed that I tend to babble when I get going on a subject I'm interested in, and I wouldn't want to bore you."

Buffy grinned. "My best friend does the exact same thing; I'm kind of used to it. Besides-- not going anywhere for the next several hours, remember?"

"Hmm, a captive audience," he said teasingly, flashing a quick grin. "So, what do you know about Merlin and Morgan Le Fay?"

Buffy's eyes widened at the question; how did he know she was carrying a prophecy scroll to the Cleveland Hellmouth that mentioned their names? Or-- did he? Had Dr. Jackson's research inspired Giles to do a little research of his own into the Watcher-only section of his library? Considering at least one of the prophecies on the scroll must have come true at least a year ago, that made sense.

"About as much as your average American, I guess," she shrugged, going for the safe answer. "Merlin was a wizard, he had something to do with King Arthur, and Morgan Le Fay was some kind of evil witch. I think she's supposed to be Arthur's half-sister or something?"

He winced at that, scrunching up his face behind his glasses. They had slightly squarish frames, but seemed to add character to his face rather than detracting from his looks; in fact, if those eyes of his were any bluer without the glass between them and the world, she thought they might need to be classified as deadly weapons.

"Morgan le Fay wasn't _evil_," Daniel replied with a sigh. "She occasionally took a position opposed to Merlin's, yes, but her intent was never to cause harm. In fact, in the earlier versions of the tales she aids Arthur over most of his life; she's a priestess, a goddess, a creature out of Faery. It's only in the later versions, as Christianity began to humanize her and misunderstand the Celtic values imbedded in the tales, that she was reduced to the role of a mere woman-- a jealous and often sinister enchantress."

Buffy certainly understood how men might demonize something that didn't fit their worldview rather than opening their eyes to the way things really were-- especially something that came in a young, female package. She'd learned that lesson early, locked up in a mental hospital for daring to tell her parents about vampires; the lesson had been driven home again over the years by friends who didn't want to understand her less popular decisions and human lovers who couldn't handle her strength and dominant personality. To be a Slayer was, in a very fundamental way, to be alone. Empowering all of the Potentials had reduced that burden a little, but it was still a challenge they each faced on a daily basis.

Abruptly, she wondered if Morgan le Fay could have been a Slayer, and Merlin her watcher. But no-- that wouldn't fit the information Giles had found. Still, Buffy couldn't quite shake that familiar image as she turned more fully toward Daniel, fascinated despite herself by his tale.

"What do you mean, Celtic values?" she asked, curious.

"Under the beliefs of Celtic rule, women had equal if not greater power than men," he replied. "They were even expected to take lovers; in the original sagas, in fact, Guinevere would not have been judged unfaithful for her relationship with Lancelot, even though she'd married Arthur. She would have been a free woman, able to take whomever she chose to her bed."

"Wow," Buffy said. "And why is it that they're not ruling the world, again?" she asked wryly.

That got another grin out of him. "I have some friends that would agree with you," he said. "Anyway, I've been trying to research the specifics of the final confrontation recorded between Merlin and Morgan le Fay, specifically what became of an artifact he had in his possession at the time, but I haven't been having much luck."

It took a second for the implications of that to register. "You weren't there to do research for a book, or a paper, were you?" she asked, the humor draining out of her mood as she thought again of the scroll tucked in her bag. "You think they were real people, and that they left something behind."

Daniel ducked his head a little. "Well, yes," he replied. "I know that the Holy Grail has been a popular topic lately-- all that nonsense about the Da Vinci code-- but most legends do have a basis in truth, and I'm convinced there's something there to be found. After all, most archaeologists thought Troy was a myth until Heinrich Schliemann dug it up." He took a deep breath then and turned his intent gaze back on her. "But enough about my research. How did your visit go? I didn't see you in the library very often."

"That would be because I wasn't there to visit the _books_," she replied archly, allowing the diversion. "Giles is-- well, I guess you could say he's one of my mother's ex-boyfriends." Not strictly true, but better than implying that a forty-something high school librarian had inappropriately befriended a bunch of students less than half his age. "He was kind of a mentor for me and some of my friends, even after they broke up, and since Mom died he's pretty much been the only adult-type family my sister and I have left."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Daniel replied, reaching to clasp one of her hands briefly.

She smiled a little at his concern, but shrugged it away. "Thank you," she said, "but it's all right-- it's been several years, now. I'll always miss her, but I still have Giles and Dawn and my friends."

"I understand," he said. "I lost my parents when I was very young. It took a long time, but I built another family out of my friends, too. The family you choose is just as important as the family you were born into."

The flight attendants interrupted them then, making announcements and readying the passengers for flight as the plane taxied down the runway. Buffy was almost relieved to break gazes with Daniel and turn her attention instead on the uprightness of her tray table, the location of the exits, and the condition of her seat-belt; she could hardly believe she'd managed to get into such a deep conversation with a near-stranger, but when she replayed their conversation in her head she couldn't find anything suspicious about it. He just happened to be a handsome, friendly guy, and she just happened to be very much attracted to him.

Danger, Will Rosenberg. Surely it wasn't possible that he'd turn out to have something to do with the prophecies she was carrying back to Cleveland? Because that would be an _excellent_ excuse to see a lot more of him in the weeks to come. But it didn't seem likely-- and besides, how would she find out? Should she just come right out and ask him if any friends of his had pulled a sword out of a stone sometime in the last year? Or whether he knew a former goddess of sex who'd given birth to a demoness that threatened the whole world? As if. He'd laugh in her face. No, it would take a lot more footwork to solve those questions, she was sure.

In the meantime, though, there was no reason why she couldn't indulge herself a little, right? Sure he was older-- he looked like he might be in his mid to late thirties-- but she was hardly a teenager any more, and it wasn't that big of an age gap, considering. He was human, and hot, and smart, and maybe if he knew a lot about myths already he wouldn't be so shocked if he ever stumbled across the kinds of things she dealt with every night. And if he was interested back...

"So where's home for you?" she asked, as the engine noise finally faded enough to allow quiet conversation again.

"Colorado Springs," he said. "I do consulting work for the Air Force base there. How about you? Where do you call home?"

_He's with the military?_ Buffy thought with a pang. Though maybe that wouldn't be _such_ a bad thing-- she could always have Riley check him out, couldn't she? Make sure he wasn't involved in anything like the Initiative?

"I'll be staying in Cleveland for awhile with my sister," she answered. "I lived in California for most of my life, but I've done a lot of traveling recently; after we lost our house in Sunnydale, I sort of went wherever the wind blew me. I was in Rome for awhile, and then Brazil, and England; I'm not sure yet where I'm going to settle down."

"Living in the journey instead of the destination?" Daniel asked, smiling again. "I did that for several years. My parents were archaeologists, and so am I; I spent a lot of years traveling, between digs and the various universities I attended."

"And you're happy just staying in one place now?" she wondered aloud.

He shrugged. "The work is rewarding, and my team-- my friends there-- are my family. I know eventually some of us will move on, but for now, I think I'm exactly where I need to be."

Buffy nodded thoughtfully. "I hear that," she said, thinking of the Scoobies and the seven years they'd spent holding the line together. They'd all scattered now, but they were still bound together by all they'd been through despite the distance between them.

The conversation continued off and on for the rest of the flight, between meals and naps and an amazing view of the sun setting over a high bank of cloud out of her tiny window. She never did have to find something to distract herself with. Whatever the topic was, Daniel always had something to say, and another question to ask; by the time the plane reached New York, where she would change to a plane to Cleveland and he one to Denver, she felt almost as though she'd known him for years. He'd managed to avoid too many specifics about his current life-- a relief to her, as she hadn't had to be too evasive about what she actually did for a living, either-- but aside from that, she felt she'd come away with a very good picture of his character, and he of hers. She definitely wanted to keep in touch, military involvement or no.

When it came time to part at the airport, she caught his hand impulsively and pressed her card into his palm. Andrew had had them made; the strange graphic on them was meant to be a heart with a stake through it, but it was so stylized no one not in the know would be able to tell, and in small print underneath it bore just two lines: her name, and her cell phone number.

Daniel smiled at her as he put it in his pocket, then stepped out of the flow of traffic to rustle through his satchel. "I don't have any cards with me," he said, "so this is just going to have to do." He pulled out a notebook whose pages were heavily covered in script, then scribbled something quickly in the bottom margin of one of them. When he tore off a small scrap of the paper and handed it to her, she saw the same information she'd given him: his name and a number, in very cramped print.

Buffy smiled back and promised to call soon, then watched him until he disappeared out of sight. She hated to see him leave, but wow, what a view as he walked away. She sighed, then turned the scrap of paper over in her hand before putting it in her pocket.

"-**ed Ganos Lal, th**-" read the hurried scrawl on the reverse side.

Buffy gasped. According to Giles, that was the true, original name of Morgan le Fay, a name the Watchers had kept a close secret-- something Daniel would never have found in the tame half of the library.

"The Lazarus Scholar, the Knower of Names," she whispered to herself, recalling a line of the prophecies, half-elated and half-dreading what that might mean.

Yes, she would be calling him back very soon indeed.

--


	2. Favored of Merlin

**Title**: Favored of Merlin

**Author**: Jedi Buttercup

**Disclaimer**: The words are mine; the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.

**Rating**: T

**Summary**: _Cam would ask what the hell a woman like that saw in Dr. Daniel Jackson, if he hadn't already seen the reaction every dangerous female ever to cross the man's path seemed to have to him_. 4200 words.

**Spoilers**: B:tVS post-"Chosen", Stargate SG-1 through 10.14 "The Shroud".

**Notes**: For Ava, set in the same 'verse as "Knower of Names". Apologies for the lack of any actual on-screen Buffy/Daniel, but Cam insisted on telling this section of the story next; I've been fighting him on it for over a year. More to come.

* * *

_Wings flutter, voices hover clear:  
"O just and faithful knight of God!  
Ride on! the prize is near."_

~Lord Alfred Tennyson, "Sir Galahad"

* * *

Cam really did believe that Jackson was still alive. He hadn't just said that in an attempt to duck out of an unpleasant duty; he'd read the man's file, after all, and witnessed him pull more than one rabbit out of a hat since they'd started working together. He wasn't the only one who had faith in Jackson, either; four out of five former SG-1 members agreed with him, and if it was good enough for them, it should also have been good enough for General Landry.

Seriously, what sense would it have made for Adria to kill such a valuable captive, once she finally had him in her grabby little Orici hands? Jackson had the schematics for a weapon that could kill the Ancients floating around in his overclocked mind, plus whatever other goodies Merlin might have given him; the Ori's chosen avatar should be all over those secrets like stink on manure, and there was no way to get that kind of data out of a dead guy.

Ergo, he had to be alive. Granted, it might not be pleasant to be him at the moment, but- he should still be in one piece. Just a little out of reach, at the moment.

Logic wasn't proof, though. Neither was instinct; and Landry didn't run things like O'Neill or Hammond had, allowing generous days or weeks (or even months, in one reported summer-long instance) to pass while particularly luck-blessed members of SG-1 were trapped off-world in uncertain circumstances. No; instead he'd sent one Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell- ostensibly team leader of the herd of cats collectively known as SG-1, in practice more like their apprentice slash babysitter- to tell his teammate's girlfriend the Energizer Archaeologist had gone missing in action.

He was _not_ looking forward to it, and for more reasons than just because he hoped (expected, _believed_) Jackson would be back before they knew it, and all the trouble and worry he was about to put the young woman through would turn out to be a waste. For one thing, she didn't have the clearance to know any more than the vaguest cover story regarding the program, so Cam's explanation would have to be a little light on convincing details. And for another- well.

He'd ask what the hell a woman like that saw in Dr. Daniel Jackson, if he hadn't already seen (and read about) the reaction every dangerous female ever to cross the man's path seemed to have to him: they all wanted to have his babies. _All_ of them. Metaphorically in some cases, more literally in others. And given the roster, Cam really _didn't_ want to know what exactly the draw was. They ranged from Goa'uld Queens to princesses to mass murderesses to Ascended demi-deities and career con artists; whatever Jackson's secret might be, Cam's life was more than interesting enough as it was.

At least Buffy Summers had the benefit of being human, _and_ Jackson had met her outside of the Program, Cam knew; it could have been worse. Jackson had said something about running into her in a library the girl's father figure was in charge of over in England, and spending time together on the long plane ride back to the States, exchanging phone numbers and whatnot. He'd gone on to claim they'd actually bonded over a discussion of Celtic myths, of all things; if it had been anyone else spinning that line, Cam would never have bought it. Who knew with Jackson, though. The first time he'd met her at a barbeque at O'Neill's after Vala's little amnesiac adventure, he'd taken one look at the girl- at her stance, her reflexes and the self-aware shadows behind her bright beauty queen smile- and exchanged a very skeptical glance with the former black ops general. Definitely more to her than met the eye.

Her background check had come up clear of any current ties to the NID or foreign military operations, though, and O'Neill had assured him that even if she _was_ somebody's intelligence asset, her target would _not_ be Jackson or anyone else at the SGC. He'd received a very pointed warning-off from an unnamed, highly placed source that may or may not have once gone by the title, 'Mr. President', so for the time being Cam was taking him at his word. Still, she was _something_ deadly, unless Cam's instincts were sadly malfunctioning... and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was _not_ going to take his story lying down.

Cam cleared his throat, then finally lifted his hand to knock, aware that he'd been standing on the front stoop of her house in Cleveland for more than long enough to look like an idiot. Time to get it over with.

The door opened to reveal a young woman in jeans with long brown hair and intelligent blue eyes. Cam recognized her from the picture of Summers and her sister that Jackson had recently installed on his shelf, a couple rows down from the security clip of Sha'uri. He'd observed at the time, quirking an amused smile, that the girl looked more like Jackson than she did her short, blonde sister; the effect was even more pronounced in person, right down to the alarmed furrow of her brow and the disgruntled curve of her lips.

"You're Buffy's boyfriend's boss," she said flatly, one hand on the back of the door and the other propped on her hip where she stood blocking the gap.

"Yes'm," Cam told her, automatically adjusting his stance as he would to face a potentially hostile, but necessary ally. "And you'd be her sister Dawn? You're just as pretty as your picture."

She rolled her eyes at his attempt at charm, then stepped back, opening the door further. "I'll let my sister know you're here," she replied, blatantly not inviting him to step inside.

He'd have taken it for further rudeness, but her sister had done the same thing to him before, and Jackson had been very blasé about it. Something about cultural differences- though Cam had never thought of California as _that_ foreign a place. His grandma would have whopped him a good one if he'd ever treated guests like that. He sighed, then walked into the entry room, watching Dawn watch him suspiciously back as she shut the door and headed for the stairs to the second floor.

"Buffy, visitor! It's that Colonel guy Daniel works with!" she called.

"What?" A startled voice filtered down, followed by a suspicious silence; Cam took a deep breath as he removed his cover, and hoped that the presence of Ms. Summer's non-combatant sister would mitigate the conversation they were about to have, at least a little bit.

Her shoes appeared in his line of vision first; not the strappy little spike-heeled things he usually saw her in, but sturdy, fashionable yet practical stacked boots, followed by jeans, a low-cut dark blouse, and an updone hairdo that did not distract from her watchful green eyes and pensive frown.

"Colonel Mitchell," she said, as she reached the ground floor. "What brings you here... in uniform... without Daniel?" Her eyes flicked to the door, then back again, her mouth set in a worried line.

Yeah, she'd already guessed, Cam could tell. This was _not_ going to be pleasant.

He could still remember the first thing Jackson had ever said to him about her. It had been months ago, just after Jackson's return from his research trip, but before Cam's 200th trip through the Stargate; General O'Neill had sneakily scheduled that thing with the alien producer, Martin Lloyd, to distract them from the party planning, and Cam had gone to fetch Jackson when he'd been late for the meeting. He'd found the archaeologist holed up in his lab, but not absorbed in his relics or his books as usual; he'd been staring at his computer instead, a soft little smile on his face that made him look years younger.

"Must be a pretty important email," Cam had remarked. "C'mon, we're late."

"I'm- actually not sure yet," Jackson had replied, tearing his eyes away from the screen with obvious reluctance. "The medieval scholar I met in England found a reference in his library after I'd left, one that might or might not have some bearing on our search for the Grail."

"And _that_ made you smile like that?" Cam had teased him. "Might have known you'd only get that googly-eyed over a book."

Jackson had snorted in disdain at the comment, but the little smile had made a reappearance; an obvious tell, given how worn and bitter he'd generally been on the job since the Ori war had heated up. "Oh, that's- ah, he's sending his foster daughter to deliver it in person. I've talked with her a few times; she's- well, she's an interesting person."

Cam's eyebrows had flown up at that, both at the phrasing and the use of present tense to refer to the woman. He'd deliberately leaned back out in the corridor and glanced both ways, then turned back to Jackson to say in a false whisper, "Better not say that around Vala. She catches that look in your eyes about some other woman? This girl of yours won't know what hit her."

Jackson had taken the half-joking comment more seriously than Cam had meant it, though, smile sliding into a wry, pensive expression. "I don't know; somehow, I get the feeling Buffy could give her a run for her money."

And boy howdy, had she. How a surf-and-sunshine California cheerleader type could successfully outsnark, outmaneuver, and even out_fight_ (in a hand-to-hand 'demonstration' at O'Neill's that Cam desperately wished he'd caught on camera) a former Goa'uld host with decades of criminal experience, and then expect everyone else to _buy_ the frothy image she affected, Cam had no clue. Not only that, Summers had wormed her way right into the heart of one of the most emotionally barricaded men Cam had ever met after just a few months' worth of long-distance dating. She might be young, and she might have the most ridiculous name he'd ever had to say out loud, but in no universe could she ever pass for harmless.

Best to just come right out and tell her. "He went missing in action two days ago," he said, plainly, not flinching away from Summers' intent gaze.

She swallowed, hand dropping to the newel post at the base of the stairs, but she didn't look surprised. "And you can't tell me where or why," she said, matter-of-factly.

"It's classified," he apologized. "I'm sorry. But I want you to know that we have every reason to believe he's still alive, and that we'll get him back in one piece."

Summers nodded at that, but still didn't react in any way Cam had expected; rather than upset, she seemed- resigned, that was really the only word for it. As though she'd hoped he wouldn't come, but expected it, all the same. She threw a speaking glance at her sister, and Dawn bit her lip, nodding back.

"_ Favored of Merlin, freed from the Demon Queen's snare _," Dawn said in response, the words strangely measured as though she was reading them from a poem.

"So you must be _Galahad Secundus, he who vanquishéd Ba'al_?" Summers said, trying for light-hearted as she turned back to Cam. "Huh. Gotta say, I didn't see that coming; I had Murray picked out as the god-killer of your bunch, or maybe General O'Neill."

"Excuse me?" Cam stared at her, feigning complete bafflement- which actually wasn't all that much of an act. He _was_ surprised, not only by the words they'd used, but by the casual way they'd said them; how could either Summers girl have known those references?

Merlin had actually referred to Cam as Percival and named _Jackson_ Galahad, but Cam had done a little research into the Grail myths himself since SG-1 had taken up a starring role in their own repeat edition of the legends, and Summers' choice of role was thematically more accurate. Whatever they _looked_ like, Percival and Galahad had both been part of a story detailing a successful Quest to retrieve the Sangreal- but only Galahad had been led by King Arthur to retrieve a very special sword. Unlike the one in the Disney movie that had proclaimed its retriever King of England, the legend on Galahad's sword had read, '_Never shall man take me hence but only he by whose side I ought to hang; and he shall be the best knight of the world_.'

Cam didn't know about _that_; he certainly wouldn't count himself the best soldier on Earth. And neither he nor Jackson could exactly be called 'pure', which was supposed to be a defining characteristic of the Grail knights; so Cam supposed he had only himself to blame that his strength was _not_ 'as the strength of ten'. But he _was_ on a Quest to find the real Sangreal, and he _had_ drawn a sword from a stone, something no other living Tau'ri could claim. If that didn't put him in the running for the second coming of Galahad, he didn't know what would.

Summers should know nothing about that, though. He didn't think Jackson would have spilled confidential details; the guy could get mouthy off-world, or even on-world when he thought it would serve the greater good for someone to catch a classified clue, but in no universe would he have found it appropriate to spill the beans to his out-project girlfriend. He certainly wouldn't have told her that _Cam_ would somehow be the one to finish off the multiplicitous System Lord, if she'd even known enough to differentiate the Goa'uld named Ba'al from the deity in all the textbooks, which wasn't clear. Regardless, Summers was, as he'd thought all along, much more than she pretended to be.

"Don't play dumb with me," she said, echoing his thoughts, her smile souring. "You know what we're talking about. You're here because someone took Daniel, and you're pretty much looking at an apocalypse no matter what happens next."

Her words were _almost_ clipped enough to obscure the faint tremor in her voice beneath them. Cam took a deep breath, trying to decide whether to deny everything; then decided to hell with it, he needed to know how she knew- and if she knew something they didn't.

"You want to tell me how you know about Merlin? Or Ba'al?" he asked, voice gone quiet and intent.

Summers narrowed her eyes a little in response. "You don't think Daniel told me?" she asked.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I know Jackson better than that. And so do you. There's no point in posturing at each other while he's in danger; we can have that throw-down later. In the meantime, what _exactly_ do you know?"

She frowned a moment longer, assessing him back, then threw another skeptical glance at her sister. "You see, there's this prophecy," she said, warily.

Cam felt his jaw drop. He'd heard O'Neill's rant on the subject before; the only two times SG-1 had ever come across legit evidence of prescience had also been Ancient-related, one the result of genetic manipulation by a Goa'uld using Ancient tech and the other a series of messages left behind by an Ancient time traveler. It made complete sense that one of the officious glowhards would have set up an obscure secondary message relay rather than risk being directly associated with Merlin's little project.

Well, at least they had _some_ help; it was better than nothing. "Damn it, Jackson," he muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face, then gestured to Summers. "Okay. Prophecy. Got it. Go on."

He was gratified to see _her_ eyes widen a little at that. Blonde eyebrows arched high as she took in his reaction. "...Just, 'go on'? That's all you have to say?" she prodded.

"I've seen stranger things in my time," Cam replied, "mostly since I met Jackson. And if you know how to get him back? I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face. So, what's it say?"

Arms crossed, Summers tapped one toe absently against the floor. Then she closed her eyes, let go a long breath, and began to quote from memory.

"_Favored of Merlin, freed from the Demon Queen's snare,_" she said, repeating Dawn's earlier comment. Then she continued, in cadenced, almost mournful tones:

"_Now face thee a choice of sacrifice most grievous.  
Vanquish thy enemy, and thy peoples shall burn;  
Or seek Aurora's gift. Angels and demons both  
Shall fall under her pitiless touch. Mortals saved,  
And heav'n laid waste; or mark hell's end with ash and blood.  
Choose thy forfeit with care. But choose, or wholly fail._"

Cam swallowed as he listened to the ominous snatch of rhyme, feeling the hair stand up on the backs of his arms. "That... doesn't sound very encouraging," he said. Demons for Ori, he got that connection well enough; and by process of elimination, that meant the Ascended Alterans had to be what the poet meant by angels. Not the best analogy, in his not so humble opinion; but the thing had obviously been written in an older era, and how else would a writer back then describe an incorporeal being of light? He didn't get how choosing to kill only the Ori would wind up causing more human deaths, or why anyone, knowing the consequences, would choose otherwise- but he also knew it wouldn't be as simple as those few lines had made it sound. Otherwise, why set down the prophecy in the first place? _Especially_ since it had to have been one of those very 'angels' who had commissioned it. And another thing-

"Who's Aurora?" he added, furrowing his brow. "And what kind of gift are we talking about here?"

Another glance passed between the sisters. "It's... an artefact we have in our possession," the elder Summers said, slowly. "This so isn't the time for the long version, so you'll just have to believe me when I tell you we're fighting a secret war of our own, against opponents the rest of the world has never heard of. There's a certain amount of crossover, though; that's how I met Daniel in the first place. And when I realized what the prophecy was saying..." She trailed off, face crumpling in distress.

Dawn cleared her throat, drawing Cam's attention away from her sister. "It has to do with portals," she said. "We can't be more specific than that without knowing exactly who these angels and demons are, _where_ they are, and what exactly Daniel's involved with that will give him the power to _make_ a choice that big. But- Aurora's gift can poke through either space or dimensional walls or both, provided you know exactly what you're aiming at. The problem is, whatever's on both sides? Will kind of bleed into each other as long as the portal's open; it's not a one-way thing, and it's not easy to control."

Unlike a wormhole, the random thought passed through Cam's mind; though he still didn't see what portals had to do with the Sangreal, beyond the obvious- bringing Jackson home.

"Is this- gift- something you'd be willing loan us?" he said slowly.

"Willing? Duh. But able? Not by itself. We kind of have to go with it," Dawn said, apologetically. "Like I said: not so easy to control."

He sighed, working the implications out in his mind. If they hadn't told Daniel about any of this, there must have been a reason; and it probably wasn't anything simple, like a new control crystal they could just plug into the Gate and forget about. The General would _kill_ him if he brought Daniel's girlfriend and her sister in without warning. But then- SG-1 had moved on weaker evidence before, taking actions that had proved to be utterly necessary in hindsight. Spirit of the law before the letter of it, slippery slope and all.

"I don't suppose you could let me see it first?" he asked, already resigned to the answer.

Summers spoke up again, laying a hand on her sister's arm. "I'm sorry, Colonel Mitchell. Like I said, we have our own war, and even bringing it out for you to see? Would be like ringing a dinner bell for our enemies. Stopping an apocalypse is one thing, but it'll have to stay secret until then."

"We can show you the prophecies, though!" Dawn hastened to say in the face of Cam's disappointed grimace. "At least they're in mostly chronological order; you should be able to match up the stuff that happened _before_ Daniel's capture. We couldn't make heads or tails of a lot of it- wading through the all metaphors is a real pain in the butt if you don't know the context- but you should be able to figure most of it out."

"You do realize that if you're wrong about this, or trying to scam me-" he began, for form's sake.

"Yeah, yeah, the white-hot fury of a thousand fiery suns," Dawn cut him off, dismissively.

"Dawn!" Summers drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "Colonel- this is for _Daniel_." She gestured, helplessly. "I gave him my phone number before I had any idea he was connected to the prophecies; I haven't been dating him under false pretences."

"I never suggested you were," he replied. It had never even occurred to him, really; though he was still as wary of her as of a well-aimed whipstrike, she was about as subtle as one, too. He didn't doubt her distress was genuine. "What does bother me is that you never told him any of this."

She hugged her arms around herself at that, and gave him a faint smile. "I did, though. I gave him the book; he's read it. But I couldn't tell him it was more than just another collection of Grail poetry without telling him everything. You know what he's like when he's looking for answers, and not all my secrets are totally mine to tell. If he'd made it to Christmas..." She turned away, looking toward one of the windows, green eyes shimmering with moisture.

"Giles would _totally_ freak if she spilled her secret identity _again_ just 'cause she got groiny with someone," Dawn pointed out, drawing Cam's attention away from her sister again. "There's a reason she has decoys in Europe now. Besides, it's not like he told us _his_ secrets, either."

Cam nodded warily, though he found the mention of 'decoys' more alarming than her use of the word 'groiny'. Still, it was useful to know they weren't operating alone; if they had a Landry of their own to answer to, they probably weren't lying about their war, or their reasons.

"I can't promise you anything," he said. "And I can't take you back with me today. But I'll talk to General Landry about getting you VIP passes; it's likely he'll allow it- if I can show him you have good reason. I know that's not what you want to hear, but you said your prophecy doesn't activate 'til Daniel comes home, so we should still have some time."

"Until he's _freed_, not necessarily home," Summers replied, worriedly. But she turned back away from the window, nodding acquiescence. "I can deal, though, if you promise to _call_ us if he shows up before then. Strike that; call _Dawn_. She can- she knows where to find Aurora's gift, if I'm out of touch."

Dawn had turned and scooted up the stairs when Cam mentioned needing proof; she thundered back down them again as her sister mentioned her name, her expression tense with some emotion he couldn't name. She held a dusty old tome out to him, and he took it, carefully tucking it under his arm.

"We've scanned it, but I'd appreciate it if you'd scan it, too, and then send back the original," she said, fingers curling into her palms as though she hadn't wanted to let go.

Cam was struck again by the fact that she reminded him of Daniel as much as her sister, and nodded. He knew how the archaeologist could get about his texts. All the same, Cam appreciated that they _were_ letting him take the actual book- which the SGC could test for authenticity- rather than forwarding copies of the text. "I will. I promise." Then he turned to Summers again, at a bit of a loss for what else to say to her. This hadn't exactly gone anything like he'd been expecting. "Ma'am. I really do believe he's okay; she's got every incentive to keep him sane and in one piece."

"Thank you," she replied, then quirked a smile at him. "And- thank you for believing me."

"Do I want to ask what you'd have done if I hadn't?" Cam asked wryly, extending a hand to shake.

Summers chuckled a little, then disdained the hand and pulled him into a tight, quick press of a hug. "I can see we're going to get along just fine," she said.

'Fine' wasn't exactly the word Cam would have chosen. But- yeah, he hoped so, too.


	3. Herald of Doom

**Title**: Herald of Doom

**Author**: Jedi Buttercup

**Rating**: PG-13

**Disclaimer**: The words are mine; the worlds are not.

**Summary**: B:tVS/SG-1. _"Let she who's actually been the subject of a prophecy cast the first stone," Buffy said._ 3000 words.

**Spoilers**: Post-Chosen for Buffy; mid-Season 10 for SG-1

**Notes**: For avamclean, who asked for an entry in the Grail Prophecies 'verse. Another interim piece. Bad poetry mostly mine, though I nicked the 'definition' of Carter from the SGA Legacy book series. I think there'll probably be about two more parts to this.

* * *

_"Only those of virtue true may win the prize concealed [...] Prudence, wisdom, charity, kindness, and faith. Let these be your guide on this perilous quest."_

-The Parchment of Virtues, Stargate SG-1 10.10, "The Quest Part I"

* * *

"Ms. Summers," the general said, standing as she entered the briefing room. "Thank you for coming."

Buffy smiled thinly at him and shook the proffered hand, applying just enough Slayer strength in her grip for him to notice, then took a seat opposite him at the table. "Sure thing, General. Colonel Mitchell said you authenticated the book of prophecies I gave him?"

He had a file folder open in front of him, a sheet of paper with her picture on it visible at the top, and he glanced down at it before answering. "We've determined that its age makes it unlikely to have been created as a hoax," he began, diplomatically. Then he knit his fingers together atop the open file, giving her a direct look made more fierce by a pair of distractingly bushy eyebrows.

"However..." she continued for him, tilting her head as she copied his pose.

"However," he nodded, "we find the coincidence of your offering it to our personnel _exactly_ when the final chapter would prove applicable just a little... _too_ coincidental to easily believe."

She sighed. She'd been expecting something like this, but it still annoyed her. Most delays would, she suspected, until she actually had Daniel back. "General Landry, I don't know how much Mitchell told you- but I made no secret of the fact that I had this book. I loaned it to Daniel months ago, not long after I realized he potentially fit at least one of the prophecies and that he was collecting literature on the Grail, and I know he at least skimmed the whole thing. But prophecies can be really hard to interpret before they happen."

"Yet _you_ seem to have interpreted them well enough," the general replied dryly. "It never occurred to you to flip to the relevant page and point it out to him?"

"Don't you think I would have, if I could be sure it was that simple?" Buffy frowned back. "Have you actually read it? Most of ones I guessed might be relevant are totally vague, which is pretty much the norm for prophecies, and until Daniel actually went missing there was nothing I could conclusively point to and say, 'there, see?' I didn't have any _proof_, not even a convincing argument."

"You were his girlfriend. You didn't think that laid any obligation on you to tell him? Or on him to believe you?" Landry sounded even more skeptical at that.

"Let he who's actually been the subject of a prophecy cast the first stone," she replied, equally crisply. Duh; of course she felt guilty. Sticky, heavy guilt that clung and weighed her down every morning she woke and remembered he was gone. But that was between her and Daniel. "You think it helped me when I was sixteen and someone told me I was prophesied to die? Or six years later when I kept hearing 'from beneath you, it devours'? Hell to the no. But it's not just that." She sat back a little, crossing her arms. "I see you have my file. I'm guessing that means someone decided to clue you in on my playtime with Maggie Walsh?"

Landry snorted. "I'm not sure yet how much of _that_ I'm going to believe, either."

"Try all of it," Buffy said. "There were enough survivors I'm sure you can get all the confirmation you need. But just assume for the moment it's true- then you know the first thing I thought when I read about a prophecy mentioning _demons_ and _hell_ was that whatever was going to happen, was going to happen on my turf. I planned to start easing Daniel into it later in the year, so he'd believe me when I told him; vampires are usually a good place to start. The whole alien thing? Came as a total surprise."

"Hmm. I'm still not convinced I should even have let Colonel Mitchell tell you that much," he replied, pursing his lips. "And there's still an awful lot of 'she said' for me to accept in that explanation. Without Dr. Jackson here to corroborate, how can I be sure you're telling the truth?"

She rolled her eyes. "I've never seen Daniel's office, but if it's anything like his apartment, he keeps notes on _everything_. Have someone take a look."

"I've already had Colonel Carter looking into that while she's convalescing," he admitted, nodding. "So let's say she does find it. What, then? Will you give us 'Aurora's gift' and instruct us in its use? And what, exactly, does it _do_ that will cause Heaven to be 'laid waste'?"

Buffy paused for a long moment, deciding exactly how much to tell him, and went with the least vulnerable option. Daniel, she'd have to tell about Dawn. Maybe his team. If a general _had_ to be in on it, then okay, maybe O'Neill; Daniel had invited her to one of his barbeques, and it would take a blind woman not to see how tightly they were still bound. For Daniel's sake, _he'd_ keep Dawn's abilities secret. But she couldn't read Landry that clearly, and she wouldn't trust Dawn's safety on a maybe. So she'd start with the last of his questions, and hope he didn't press.

"Actually, the thing is, it doesn't lay anything to waste. Not by itself. Not most of the time, anyway. Like I told Mitchell, it just... makes portals."

"Like the Stargate makes portals?" Landry asked, visibly perplexed. "Why would we need it, then?"

"I can't be sure," Buffy said. "But my guess is, it's because the portals that- that the gift makes? They aren't just one way. And they aren't limited by distance or origin point. If he has to go somewhere or send something off the normal network..." She shrugged. "There's all kinds of possible reasons."

It had taken Dawn a lot of time and experimentation to figure out how the portals worked, most of it on her own- she'd been worried, and she'd been right to be, that Buffy and Willow would completely freak if they found out she was cutting herself in the name of magic. Or any reason; Buffy had to admit, the Key was not the first thing she'd thought of when she'd caught Dawn with a razor blade. Once that misunderstanding was past, though, and she'd screamed herself hoarse in secondary panic over the idea of losing her little sister and maybe the whole universe to the tearing magic that had killed her, Dawn had confessed she'd gone to the Devon coven with a few questions. Apparently, without a very specific conjunction of time and space, the Key's magic should actually be possible to control.

It still required blood. It still resulted in the origin and destination points sort of... bleeding into each other as long as the portal was open, due to the way the Key 'folded' space so Dawn could create the connection. And the portals tended to persist exactly as long as it took for Dawn's fresh wound to clot, rather than shutting off the instant she wanted them to. But she _could_ create them on demand now with a good enough visualization to guide her, and no one had to die to close them, either.

She'd never actually tried it on a _galactic_ scale before, which was a little worrisome now that Buffy had some idea what was actually going on. But she had done the moon, right after she and Buffy had sent the prophecies off with Mitchell- given that Daniel's official cover was 'Deep Space Radar Telemetry', and the Hellmouth was being a lot quieter than usual, they'd decided to take the 'space' part rather than the 'hell' part literally and see if it was possible. _That_ had been a real trip, even before Willow had freaked over losing her connection to Gaia and lost control of their air bubble.

Landry narrowed his eyes as he parsed her explanation. "Then perhaps you'd better bring it in early so we can test it at interstellar ranges. Maybe see if it'll allow someone past an Ori vessel's shield, things of that nature."

"Sorry, no." Buffy shook her head at that attempt at an end-run. "It really is a big red button, limited use kind of thing. You'll just have to trust us to provide it when the moment comes. _If_ Daniel decides to use it then. And _if_ you find him before he faces that decision."

"So let me get this straight," he said, beginning to grow angry. "You give us a prophecy that says people will burn unless this thing is used, but you won't tell us what it is, or even let us see it, or so much as have it on hand in preparation, _and_ you want me to brief your completely under-qualified sister on the project as well? You, at least, I can find some justification for," he gestured to the file, "but if the IOA asks why an undergraduate college student who isn't even ROTC has been granted access?"

"You'll find a reason," Buffy said.

"Is that meant to be a threat?" he exclaimed.

While Buffy was staring at him in frustration, trying to figure out a way to get through to him- why couldn't O'Neill have been in Colorado this week, like she'd thought he'd be while Sam was recovering?- a knock came at the door, disrupting the tension.

"It better be important," Landry called out.

The door cracked open, and an efficient Sergeanty guy whose voice she recognized from the phone stuck his head in. "General? Colonel Carter's here; she says she's found something."

Landry sighed, then threw Buffy a pensive look and nodded. "All right. Send her in."

The Sergeant pulled back, and Sam limped in a moment later, shutting the door behind her. She had a sheaf of looseleaf yellow ruled pages in her hands and a worried expression on her face.

"Colonel Carter? You've found Dr. Jackson's notes?" he prompted her.

She took a careful seat at the table with her pages, one hand pressed to her side, and nodded. "Yes- though there's not much there. Just that he did read the prophecies, a few notes about the references to a Quest or the Sangreal in specific, some question marks, and a notation about researching prophecy in general for evidence of Ascended interference. That's not what really brought me here, though; one of the things he copied out was a description of the Quest party, and, well, I think you should hear it."

"Go on," he said, curiously.

Buffy already knew this part by heart- it was near the beginning, and one of the first things she'd clicked on after she met Daniel- but she still listened with bated breath as Sam read it off:

"_Galahad Secundus, he who vanquisheth Ba'al  
and pulleth sword from stone: his coming shall herald  
the doom of which Merlin warned. He shall gather  
up The Lazarus Scholar, the Knower of Names;  
The Warrior Queen, She Who Carries Many Things;  
The Knight who gave his honor for his kingdom's souls;  
And The Lady of Ecstacy, Mother of Death.  
All fate shall balance on the outcome of their Quest._"

It mostly didn't rhyme. The twelve syllables per line didn't even fall in consistent sextameter. But it rang all ominous, all the same, raising the fine hairs on the back of Buffy's neck.

"The Knower of Names; that's how I picked out Daniel," Buffy nodded to her. "Though I really hope the Lazarus part doesn't mean what it sounds like it means; I thought it was some kind of metaphor before I found out about the alien thing."

Sam winced. "Not... exactly a metaphor. But the rest of this... I know you haven't had much of a chance to socialize with the team, so you may not have realized. But- sir?" She glanced at Landry.

"Carries many things- that's one way to define 'Carter', isn't it?" he said.

"And Lady of Ecstasy- Daniel said once, when I asked about Qetesh, that she was supposed to have been a fertility goddess of sacred ecstasy and sexual pleasure," she added.

"That's the Goa'uld that Vala was host to," Landry frowned. "So the Death part- that's Adria."

"And I already figured out Mitchell had to be Galahad Secundus," Buffy added. "Mostly because of the heralding part. When he showed up with the news..." She fell silent, remembering the way her breath had caught when she'd seen the lieutenant colonel waiting in the living room with his hat in his hands. She'd thought she'd have a lot more time before anything happened to the complex, intelligent, deeply intense man she was just starting to learn how to love.

Prophecies _sucked_.

And she hadn't missed that 'not exactly a metaphor' line, either. Of all the things it could have turned out that they unexpectedly had in common, why that? She had no doubt the possibilities would be turning up in her nightmares for awhile.

"Actually," Sam said, "The herald part- I think that actually took place earlier. He became the leader of SG-1 only days before the accident with the communication stones that drew the Ori's attention to our galaxy. At that time, none of us were actually a part of the team. I was headed to Nevada, Daniel to Pegasus, and Teal'c to the 'kingdom' his line talks about, the Jaffa Nation; and Vala first came here just after his arrival. He gathered us."

"And we're absolutely _sure_ that book wasn't faked," Landry said, eyebrows raised.

"Positive, sir," Sam said, looking grim. "The pages, the ink, all of it, are several hundred years old at a minimum. Dr. Lee is working on a more precise date range, but- there's no way anyone wrote this _after_ the events it describes happened, _unless_ they were a time traveling Ancient. I think we can take it as read that they _are_ the real thing."

She threw Buffy an apologetic glance as she continued. "And sir, if that's the case, it might be proof that Daniel's still alive. We might have lost him and the Sangreal to the Orici, but these two lines further on..."

She shuffled through the pages in her hands, then paused to read a rhyming couplet:

"_With further challenge shall virtue be rewarded;  
Maintain the last, lest by evil ye be thwarted._

"Sir... the last virtue we tested against Morgan's safeguards was _faith_. Daniel walked through a wall of fire, literally, to prove our worth. And the last we saw of him, he was facing the avatar of the Ori, false gods who represent themselves with images of fire. I think he's _still_ being tested. The Quest is still ongoing. We may still have a chance at the Sangreal."

"Heav'n laid waste," Landry said thoughtfully, quoting the later part of the prophecy he'd been arguing over with Buffy. Then he sighed. "All right. All right. Ms. Summers, you may bring your sister in. And be as secretive as you like about Aurora's gift. But I want you _here_, and no excuses, ready to go for the foreseeable future. I don't care about your job, your sister's college, whatever; we'll hire you, fund your sister's schooling in Colorado Springs for the time being. But you'll be _here_ until this- this 'choice of sacrifice' happens, and we have Dr. Jackson back."

Willow and Xander would squawk. But it wasn't like they were in Cleveland all the time either, and Faith would probably frankly be glad to have Buffy back out of her hair. They got along better than they used to, but not perfectly, and they probably never would. Dawn might not take it as well- but Buffy thought intergalactic portalling possibilities would make up for it. And Buffy herself didn't have many responsibilities these days, other than generaling when an apocalypse came up. Which? This completely qualified.

_Other worlds_. Who would have thought, back in the days when the only alien she'd ever heard of was a Queller demon, that The Slayer might one day walk among the stars?

"Deal," she said. "You won't regret it."

And she didn't, either. Not through the move, or all the tests she was put through going incognito as a newbie to the program, or the couple of weeks where Sam suddenly went missing during a test with a funky invisibility slash intangibility device that had been malfunctioning practically ever since they first got their hands on it. Buffy slept in Daniel's backup quarters on base, went by his lab to breathe in the scents of books and coffee and ancient pottery once a day, and picked fragments of story about him from the pages of old SGC mission files, filling in the background of the vivid mental picture she'd formed of him in the few short months they'd been dating.

She'd fallen for the man he _was_. But now she was getting some idea of what had made him that way, both the wondrous and the terrible. After she got him back, she was definitely going to have to drag him through Cleveland after dark to return the favor, and get Giles to talk to him; she felt almost guilty, wedging herself further into his life when he wasn't around. But at least it was a distraction from the worrying.

And then one day, almost six weeks since he'd gone missing, SG-1 came back from a mission off-world to report a new soft-sell Prior with a very familiar face.

"You were right about the Demon Queen's snare," Mitchell said, as she and Dawn joined them at the urgent briefing. "And we're about to bust him free of it. So it's time to ask you guys. You got Aurora's gift ready to go?"

Buffy exchanged a wide-eyed glance with Dawn, who was still a little pale from her first official trip down those deep elevators. "Yeah," Dawn said, nodding firmly. "Yeah, we're good."

"Then suit up, Summers," Landry said, grimly. "Operation Favored of Merlin is a go."

-x-


	4. Choice of Sacrifice

**Title**: Choice of Sacrifice

**Author**: Jedi Buttercup

**Rating**: T

**Disclaimer**: The words are mine; the worlds are not.

**Summary**: B:tVS/SG-1. _The strangest things often went through Daniel's mind when he hovered on the brink of death._ 6000 words.

**Spoilers**: Post-Chosen for Buffy; AU of SG-1 10.14 "The Shroud"

**Notes**: And here we go: the fulfillment part of the Grail Prophecies 'verse. Finally, hah. Not the end of the series, though; there will be at least one more part covering the repercussions (and, yes, Buffy and Daniel actually together).

* * *

_"And every bridge as quickly as he crost  
Sprang into fire and vanished, though I yearned  
To follow; and thrice above him all the heavens  
Opened and blazed with thunder such as seemed  
Shoutings of all the sons of God."_

-Lord Alfred Tennyson, "The Holy Grail"

* * *

The strangest things often went through Daniel's mind when he hovered on the brink of death. The address to a safe world. A piece of old lore almost forgotten, suddenly relevant to his continued existence. The perfect words to say to convince a dedicated foe to back down. The insane possibility that a human mind might be able to hack an army of Replicators. That sort of thing.

It was as though his subconscious mind was even more determined to survive than the rest of him, frantically scrambling for additional options while he was occupied with other things. Getting strangled, for example. Dodging bullets, caught in a virtual tent with a human-form replicator doing her best to strip-mine his memories... or facing down the full might of a quasi-Ascended being.

_Do you ever give up?_ Jared Kane had asked him the year before, in a situation as bleak as any he'd ever been in. _Not until I'm dead,_ he'd replied, _and sometimes not even then_.

And as he braced his bolstered strength against the fury of the Orici, this was what floated to the surface of Daniel Jackson's thoughts: _Favored of Merlin._

Favored. Gifted. A line from a Grail poem. A line from a prophecy?

The hot rush of power flowing through him began to falter, just as several clues abruptly fell into place in the mental puzzle he'd been piecing together for months. A touch of curiosity stirred from the mental overlay left behind by Merlin, as a sick certainty sank like a stone in his gut... but he shunted both emotion and revelation to the back of his mind in order to better defend against Adria's next strike. There was no time to explain things to his passenger, to untangle the mental exclamation point of symbol and association that had struck him like a bolt of lightning; nor, truth be told, good reason to do so even if he wasn't sorely pressed.

He blocked _that_ thought away swiftly as well, drawing on reflexes built during his mental war with Replicator Sam, and focused his sole being on holding Adria off.

It couldn't last. Inexperience, and a body not fully adapted to the energies he was wielding, told against him. But he fought hard enough for the others to escape, and the wormhole to close behind them.

_Demon Queen's Snare_, he thought again, incongruously, as he collapsed in front of the Stargate. For just a second, he thought he saw blonde hair and solemn green eyes screening him from Adria... then the Orici strode through the phantom image, smug and triumphant as she stared down at his conquered form.

Flames flashed in Adria's eyes. Darkness closed over him, and Daniel thought no more.

* * *

He woke to the unfamiliar sensation of someone else thinking orderly thoughts, like the steady clicking of a cartoon accountant stacking coins, or the metronomic tapping of a hunt-and-peck typist hovering over a keyboard. He still had a passenger: all that was left of Merlin, packed away in his skull.

An image of Sha'uri's eyes, lit from within by golden fluorescence, floated disapprovingly through his thoughts. Daniel grimaced as he sat up, reminding himself that Merlin was no Goa'uld, no Anubis using him to further his own goals. Well, at least not by intention; he had acted to save lives, and Daniel had willingly invited him. It had been the only possible way to preserve a chance at defeating the Ori.

_Indeed_, Merlin's consciousness conveyed to him, as matter of fact as the old Ancient had been in the flesh. _Oma was right; you have done well._

_I've done nothing so far but deliver your knowledge into the hands of the Orici_, Daniel countered.

He slitted his eyes open, squinting against the glare from the lights overhead and the steady afterpulse of an exhaustion headache, and took in the confines of his new cell. The walls were less ostentatious than what he'd have seen on a Goa'uld ha'tak – no solid gold paneling or runic accounts of glorious deeds carved into every wall – but it was still clear from the design that he was aboard an enemy warship. The Ori flagship, most likely. He was the only thing in the room; he hadn't even been left food or drink, or a pallet to sleep on.

Merlin replied with unexpected cheer as Daniel slowly sat up, rubbing at the bridge of his nose in an automatic effort to reduce the throbbing pain in his skull.

_Yet even this circumstance may be turned to our advantage_, the old man's voice threaded through his thoughts. _Consider that she will most likely have access to a construction device similar to my own; and consider also that her vessel will provide a means of delivering it that the Ori will not detect with sufficient time to devise a counter._

A plan unfolded in his thoughts: one that relied heavily on Daniel's practiced silver tongue, Merlin's knowledge, Adria's obsession with earning her mother's affection, and the tenacity of Daniel's team in coming after him. It... could work, in theory. It had better than appalling odds, which was more than Daniel had any right to expect, and gave him a chance at completing the Quest whose pursuit had brought him there in the first place. There was just one obvious drawback he could see.

If he did as Merlin suggested, there could be no doubts, no second chances. Adria would have to _believe_ she'd found a chink in his armor for his capitulation to be convincing; for her to willingly grant him the power to effect her defeat. She already knew how loyal SG-1 was to each other, and he'd long since made his determination not to submit to another's will perfectly clear. He'd have to expose a conceivable weakness through which she might reach him, or they'd be lost before they'd even begun.

He could think of one off the top of his mind... but it would require every fragment of acting ability he had to pull off. She was a beautiful young woman, surrounded by men she could only see as beneath her: her mother's husband, the avatars of her masters' false faith, and soldiers who would sooner bow the knee than look her in the eye. She possessed a human body, with human emotions and hormones, and no practical experience in doing anything with it but eating, sleeping, and exerting martial power. Daniel fit into none of those molds; he'd be an object of fascination to her. And he had also –

– _all fate shall balance on the outcome of their Quest_, his thoughts whispered –

– recently been disappointed in love, he told himself, drawing the role about his thoughts like a shroud. Clearly, Buffy must have known what she was doing when she brought him the book whose prophecies were apparently being fulfilled at that very moment. Therefore she was most likely a plant of the Ori, somehow snuck past Earth's defenses. Or an agent of Ba'al's network on Earth, wielding knowledge inherited from Anubis, watching to see what would happen when SG-1 unwittingly followed the clues. That would neatly explain Ba'al's insistence on risking himself in person on the Grail planet, wouldn't it?

Daniel let himself stew in the sting of those possible – though unlikely – explanations, carefully ignoring any remembrance that might suggest otherwise. The warmth of her laughter. The curve of the smile that she saved just for him. Her quiet understanding when old griefs rose to haunt him, and the trust she had offered him in return. The complete absorption with which she'd approached their few weekends physically together, as though nothing in the world mattered in that moment but the touch of his skin against hers. None of that could be allowed to matter, if he was to succeed in fooling Adria.

Never mind that Adria would always be Vala's daughter, to him. Never mind that she was technically less than six months old. He was simply... engaging in a little pre-emptive manipulation, with the lives of half the galaxy at stake.

He felt Merlin's surprise at the intensity of the emotions he packed away at the back of his mind where Adria would hopefully be unable to detect them, not to mention the screen of disappointment and betrayal he erected as a guard on his spirit, and was briefly glad that the Ancient had been too aged to finish constructing the Sangreal device himself. For all his wisdom, for all the lifetimes he'd spent among humans, Merlin was still first and foremost a scion of a race that had abandoned their responsibilities in the physical world in pursuit of personal enlightenment; he would have been particularly ill-equipped to forge the sort of emotional connection that the plan would require to succeed.

But only briefly: because when Merlin was gone, the consequences of the plan would be Daniel's alone to bear. Every betrayal of not only his own spirit but his promises to others... he felt preemptively stained just thinking of it.

So, no different from any other time his fate had crossed the paths of the Ancients, then. Shifu. Jack. Abydos. Anubis. And now...

_I have to let it happen_, he'd told Vala. It was as true in that moment as it had been then.

He reminded himself of the stakes, then wrapped his arms around his upthrust knees and waited for Adria to come. _Let the games begin._

* * *

The tingle of the _Odyssey_'s transporter relocating him, nearly two months after his abduction by Adria, was the first opportunity Daniel had to let his guard down in a very long while.

She'd come to him, not long after he and Merlin had concocted their plan, and spent the next few weeks doing exactly what he'd expected: making every effort to convert him in person. She used logic, straight out of the Book of Origin; she wielded smiles, complimenting him and staring into his eyes as though he was the most important thing in her world; and she constantly pressed against the edges of his mind, effortlessly reading his surface-level emotions and projecting a constant wave of assurance that he could trust her in return.

Had he been the Daniel who'd first stepped through the gate to Abydos, it might have worked. She was dangerously persuasive, even with all his experience. But he'd held out against far more powerful minds in the past ten years with far less at stake; and as far as Merlin was aware of Daniel's intentions, he reinforced Daniel's semi-permeable mental shielding, making sure Adria would see only what they wanted her to see.

It had paid off. She'd made him a Prior and asked him to complete the Sangreal; they'd daydreamed together about converting her mother; and she'd listened as he suggested alternative methods of presenting Origin. He wasn't sure whether she actually bought his claim that they'd convert more with honey than vinegar... but it _had_ provided a perfect opportunity for her to send him out to test his theories, and thus for SG-1 to catch him. That was all he'd needed to put the final pieces into play.

They'd done it. But they weren't the only ones waiting when the _Odyssey_ beamed him up. Daniel felt relieved for all of about two seconds... until he noticed a slender, leanly muscled form in a standard SGC uniform standing beside Teal'c, a hard, determined look in her leaf-green eyes.

"What took you guys so..." he blurted, even as he registered her presence. "_Buffy?_"

Memories stirred: things he'd deliberately tried to block out to keep them from Adria, and others he'd pushed even farther down to minimize the risk they'd come to Merlin's attention. For about half a second, he wanted nothing so much as to step forward and replace the lingering taste of Adria's mouth with a far more welcome greeting... but the game wasn't over yet. Hurriedly, he yanked his gaze away from her, focusing instead on the incongruity of Buffy's younger sister standing beside her with a pack slung over her shoulder. What had happened on Earth in the last few weeks that a college student _years_ from any accomplishments that might grant her entry to the program was aboard the SGC's most advanced space-going vessel?

"Dawn, what are you doing here?" he frowned, taking in the girl's pale, nervous expression.

She opened her mouth as though to respond, then closed it again and looked at her sister; Buffy stepped forward, narrowing her eyes at him, then glanced at something behind him. "Wait..." she said.

As she spoke, he heard the sound of a zat opening behind him, and another voice answering: "Buffy. This isn't the time, we can't be sure he..."

"We _can_. Unless you've decided the prophecies don't mean anything after all?" she replied tartly. "In which case, why the hell am I even here?"

_She **did** know_, he thought, allowing himself a moment of grim confirmation. From that sliver of possibility, he had built an entire edifice of betrayal for Adria to find purchase in; finding it to be true only strengthened his resolve to finish this before it all fell apart.

_But what was it she knew?_ Merlin asked, not for the first time; then continued with a new argument, one Daniel could not so easily ignore. _And how came she here, if she is not among those you expected to use to fulfill our plan?_

Merlin was right, of course. The fact that Buffy _was_ here meant she'd convinced the team to trust her, and book of prescient verse or no, that would not have been a simple thing to accomplish. If Daniel allowed himself to dwell on that fact, it would rather undermine the conclusion he'd been using as a shield the last couple of months... but he couldn't allow his resolve to crack at this critical stage of proceedings.

"But we discussed this; physically free doesn't necessarily mean mentally free," Mitchell said, replying to Buffy.

Daniel latched onto the words with an effort, an excuse to avoid answering Merlin's question; and as he did so, someone else decided to lend a helping hand. A curse in a deeper voice than Mitchell's echoed from his team leader's side, then someone else opened their zat'nik'atel and fired. Electricity raced up Daniel's nerves, and his old friend Darkness opened arms to him once more.

* * *

Neither Buffy nor Dawn were present when Daniel came back to his doubled self again, strapped into a restraint chair under the effects of an anti-Prior device. He was relieved, but not surprised; the surprise had been that they were there to greet him in the first place.

They didn't return while he explained the details of his plan to his skeptical teammates, either. But he knew they must be close. Particularly when Sam exchanged a purse-lipped, knowing look with Mitchell and commented, "Vanquish thy enemy, huh? Suddenly, the need for Aurora's gift makes more sense."

He'd just finished presenting his case for deactivating the Supergate in order to send the Sangreal through to the Ori galaxy, so the _vanquishing_ part made sense, but the rest of it... "What are you talking about?"

It was obvious that Buffy had shared the book of prophecies with the rest of the team, but not why, nor what Aurora's gift might be. He'd been too busy _not dwelling_ on the details since he'd realized they applied, one particular detail in specific, to spare much thought to the nature of the gift he'd be expected to use. He'd simply assumed it would be on hand when the moment came, since its name wasn't familiar and he could hardly search for it under the current conditions. Did _they_ know?

But – no, he couldn't afford to dwell on it now, either. Not yet. "Nevermind," he waved it off, clearing his mind of the speculation with an effort. "So how about it?"

Mitchell frowned at him, crossing his arms. "Let's just say we believe you. That you're not actually still working for Adria, and we open up the Supergate like you want. What's to stop the Priors from leading the rest of the fleet through, Ori or no Ori? The Sangreal will only kill the Ascended bad guys, not their followers. And probably not even Adria, since I'm assuming Merlin intended to spare himself and any other Descended Ancients with him when he was originally going to set the thing off."

"The peoples shall burn," Sam muttered unhelpfully, brow furrowed.

He could feel Merlin's curiosity starting to poke at the back of his mind again as the phrase rang another chord in his buried memories, and Daniel forced himself to overreact with exasperation, blocking the Ancient consciousness back out the only way he knew for sure would work: with an excess of lower-level emotion. "Just stop!" he slashed a hand at her, then laid a particular emphasis on certain words in his next sentence. "If you have an alternative, _I'm all ears_. But for the love of god, don't quote any of that worthless poetry at me again."

Surprise, then hurt, then a sudden, alert awareness flashed over Sam's face. She stared at him wide-eyed for a moment, then grabbed Mitchell by the elbow and started dragging their protesting teammate out of the room. "We'll get back to you on that!" she called as the door shut again behind them.

_You'd think after all this time, after all our years together, they'd trust me more than this_, he deliberately thought at Merlin.

_There were times when I wondered at what we had sacrificed to achieve our advanced stage of evolution_, Merlin thought back, a clear note of suspicion underlying his words. _But you expend so much energy on such minor interpersonal reactions when there are no vast ideas or even lives at stake. Even Camelot was not free from such strife._

_But that's what makes us human_, Daniel thought back. _I would rather die mortal – I would rather suffer every day for the rest of my life – than lose the ability to emotionally engage with others; to identify when something's right or wrong and **do** something about it._

_And that is why you lasted so little time among us_, Merlin sighed back. _You cannot achieve true enlightenment if you cannot let go of such anchors holding you back._

Daniel couldn't quite keep his mood from souring with the words, nor images of Oma and Morgan and the Others he'd met in that celestial between-planes diner from flashing through his thoughts. Even the most helpful of the Ascended he'd met had a tendency to avoid responsibility for the ultimate consequences of their actions. How many thousands of years had it taken Oma to act against Anubis? He had benefited from her attention, as had many others... but he couldn't excuse her reasons for it. _Yes, I've heard how 'small and insignificant' our plane of existence is in the scheme of things. Even you wouldn't have helped if the Ori weren't using us as a power source, would you?_

_You still do not understand_, Merlin thought, and dug once more at the barrier at the back of Daniel's thoughts.

Daniel set his jaw, tilted his head back, and focused his mind on what he'd say to the next visitor to come to him. Hopefully Jack. He might have a shot at convincing Jack. _I understand enough_, he said. _Be patient; minor details aside, I trust my team. They'll find a way to get it done._

He visualized the pyramid at Abydos – the taste of dust on his tongue, the quick flash of Sha'uri's smile as he described the text he was uncovering, the enthusiasm of the gate room guards as they reported the return of O'Neill, then walked himself back through his first meetings with each of his other teammates as well. It made for a good distraction, and reminded him just how much they'd been through together. His plan was _going_ to work. He was sure it would.

* * *

It wasn't that simple, though. Nothing ever was. Several long, frustrating conversations with Jack, Teal'c and Vala later, each of whom seemed to only grudgingly believe him, Sam and Mitchell still hadn't 'got back to him' about that alternative. The hourglass running in the back of his mind was approaching the last trickling hours' worth of sand, and Merlin was growing more and more mistrustful.

If Woolsey had his way and they killed him – or even if they only made him wait until he was himself again, all traces of both Adria's and Merlin's alterations deprogrammed – they'd lose the entire opportunity. No choice he made would affect anything, then; all the sacrifices of the last couple of months would come to nothing, and Adria's army would continue their march across the galaxy with even less reason to think fondly of the Tau'ri.

He focused on finding a way around the Prior device to keep himself from going crazy or revealing too much in his impatience, and waited for something to change. As much trust as he placed in his teammates, present and former, he knew they might not end up the ultimate voice of authority regarding his fate.

Finally, Jack returned, this time alone, to ask for the details so that the rest of the team could complete the Quest without him.

"C'mon, Daniel," he said, "you had to know we weren't going to shut down that Supergate for you."

"Well, we didn't have much _choice_," Daniel replied, lingering heavily on the last word. If Sam had picked up his clue...

Jack tucked his hands in his pockets, a twitch of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, and nodded. "Uh-huh. Thought so. As it happens, we _may_ have a means of creating a portal to the Ori galaxy without going to that extreme. The IOA won't go for springing you. But if you can give us the intel on where the ship is and how to complete the weapon, we won't even need your Prior abilities. We'll just – send it on through, using the aforementioned... means. And that will be that."

"But I didn't think Earth had access to any more ZPMs, or even any valid gate addresses for the Ori galaxy," Daniel said for Merlin's benefit, digging his fingernails into his palms.

"Oh, none of that will be necessary," Jack said smugly, rocking back a little on his heels. "Just tell us where to go, and what to do when we get there, and we'll take care of the rest."

_If we cannot free ourselves of the anti-Prior device in time..._ Daniel prodded Merlin.

_It has become clear you are concealing something from me,_ Merlin replied, _but I do not sense any wavering in your commitment to destroy the Ori. Very well._

Daniel took a deep breath and told Jack what he wanted to know.

"Got all that?" Jack asked when he'd finished, glancing vaguely toward the ceiling.

"Got it," Sam's voice replied over the radio. "Mapping coordinates now. Give us – fifteen minutes."

"You know where to reach us when you're done," Jack replied.

"Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel," a considerably younger voice chipped in, nervously.

"Aye, sir," Sam spoke over Dawn, amusement and tension in her voice. "Carter out."

Daniel took a shaky breath. Dawn again, whose presence he still didn't understand... except, perhaps as her name related to a particular Latinate deity...

The pressure in the back of Daniel's mind increased ten-fold, and he threw his head back, gritting his teeth. "Ah, Jack," he ground out.

"Daniel?" Jack replied, cautiously approaching him with an intent expression. "You all right in there?"

"Zat me, would you? I chose – ah!" He flinched as Merlin latched onto the memories he'd been hiding, and knew he had only seconds until the Ancient consciousness finished conquering the Prior device – and probably Daniel himself at the same time. He could _not_ be allowed to clue the Others in on what was coming. "I ch-chose my forfeit already, so – don't let me up until I change back, would you?"

"Huh. Not what I expected you to ask, but – yeah, all right. Better than what Woolsey has in mind." Jack shrugged, then raised his zat'nik'atel and fired.

* * *

Waking from a stun shot never got any easier, whatever its method of delivery. And that time was worse than most: Daniel screamed hoarsely as a tide of energy tore through him, gouging hot fingers through the part of him that had thought of itself as Merlin.

"Daniel? Daniel!" Hands pressed against his shoulders as he thrashed in the chair. "What the hell? I thought you said it would be hours yet before anything happened."

Daniel blinked then pushed at the newly empty feeling in the back of his brain like a child with a lost tooth. "I... I think they did it," he said blankly, feeling a little like his thoughts had shrunk to a handful of peas rattling around in a large, empty bowl. Merlin was definitely gone. "They must have set off the Sangreal..."

"I thought that was supposed to happen in the Ori galaxy," Jack frowned. "And how the hell would you know, anyway? I thought you said it wouldn't affect anyone Descended."

"It didn't," Daniel shook his head. "Affect me, I mean. I wasn't sure – I didn't think it would affect the download Merlin had left me – but it manifested as such a complete consciousness, I'm really not surprised he put a little more of himself in it than he let on. This isn't _his_ body, so..."

He let the thought trail off as it sank in: Merlin had been stripped from him. _Any_ Ascended being within a galaxy's width of the Sangreal when it went off would have been affected similarly. In the other galaxy, that meant the Ori. In theirs? The Ancients.

All of them.

_Angels and demons both  
Shall fall under her pitiless touch. Mortals saved..._

No more Merlin. No more Morgan le Fay, or Oma Desala locked in unending battle with Anubis. No more Others, looking on and refusing to lower themselves to help. The lost opportunity for knowledge was immense, but... the only ones he would have truly regretted were his goodfather and his people, given what Jack had told him of the final events on Abydos. They'd been even less prepared for Ascension than Daniel had been, though, and he rather doubted they had remained in that state.

He'd never told anyone, but SG-3 and SG-5 hadn't been his first offworld visitors on Vis Uban. An older man who'd called him 'goodson' had walked up to him a few days after his awakening and told him he 'must not feel guilty' for what had happened, for he had done all he could; it was one of the reasons Daniel had been so convinced he must have done something wrong when Jack first tried to persuade him to come home. He'd also told Daniel not to give up traveling amongst the gods, for it brought great honor to both family and tribe; and that he was grieved that it would be the last time they would meet.

He hadn't understood, then. But he did now. He firmly believed Kasuf and Ska'ara had gone to join Sha'uri, or he'd have seen them at some point since, especially after Oma's departure. That they'd accepted Shifu, and that all three awaited him now in whatever afterlife might exist. Maybe he was only telling himself that so he wouldn't feel the need to grieve, but...

He started laughing, whole body shaking with the force of his disbelief. He'd _done_ it. His _team_ had done it. They'd pulled off the impossible.

"Daniel. Daniel! Crazy times later. What about Adria?"

"Oh, she's still there," he said after a moment, once he'd calmed long enough to breathe. "It wouldn't have affected her, or a being like Khalek, if any existed. And of course, there are probably still Ascended beings in the Pegasus galaxy. But I don't think we'll have to worry about those anytime soon."

"But what about the ones in the Ori galaxy? You never answered that question," Jack frowned.

"Don't worry; they're dead," Daniel smiled lopsidedly at him. "Did you know, in Roman mythology Aurora is the goddess of the Dawn? She renews herself every morning, announcing the arrival of the sun."

"Which... you knew all along?" Jack made a perplexed face. "Buffy said she never told you they had the gift thing, whatever it actually is; and you never said anything to hint you'd caught a clue."

"She didn't. I should have guessed earlier, but I didn't actually put the pieces together until I was fighting Adria outside Merlin's cave. And by that point, I _couldn't_ let myself think about it, much less tell anyone, as long as Merlin was with me. To let him in on the secret would have been to choose 'ash and blood' by default; to 'wholly fail'. He'd never have agreed with me, and I have no doubt he could have got a message to the Others to stop it if he'd figured out what the real plan was."

"Ah," Jack sucked in a breath. "So when you were saying, before I shot you just then – you chose _us_."

"Was there ever any doubt?" Daniel snorted, sagging against the restraints. "If I never have a headache like this again, it'll be too soon. Trying to play Merlin and Adria both against each other with neither catching on to exactly what I was keeping back from them, trusting that you guys would come through..." He swallowed. "Ah. Speaking of. How'd Buffy take the whole..." He made a vague gesture.

Jack shrugged. "Better than she took your ignoring her when they first beamed you up. And I kind of think the look was a little..." He gestured toward Daniel's face. "Please tell me that's still going away when Merlin programmed it to?"

"You mean it hasn't...?" Unable to touch his skin, Daniel wrinkled his facial muscles up, and groaned as he realized he was still in Prior form. "Let's hope so. I'm not sure I can undo it, even if Merlin _didn't_ have time to take the skills back when his memories were ripped out of me."

"Maybe we can get Adria to..." Jack started to suggest, then made a face. "Yeah, no. Still not looking forward to the next time we have to deal with _her_."

"Crap! Is the door open yet? She followed us!" a sudden, unexpected voice sounded from the back of the large room Daniel had been imprisoned in, and both men turned their heads to find the source.

"Speak of the devil..." Daniel blurted.

A curtain – not of light, but of dimness somehow – shimmered there: Daniel could see shapes moving on the other side, blurred a little by the difference in light gradients. Then a body stepped through: Mitchell, his P-90 at the ready in front of him, which he lowered with a sigh as soon as he recognized them. "Right on target, guys. Come on through!"

Vala followed, swiftly; then Teal'c; then Dawn, busily wrapping a bandage over what looked like a nasty scratch on her palm; then Buffy and Sam, springing through side by side, the former wielding a wicked-looking blade Daniel had never seen the like of before.

"Can you close this one any faster?" Sam barked, aiming her P90 back into the curtain.

"I think so, there's something I can try..." Dawn squeezed her eyes shut, then began chanting something under her breath in a sing-song voice.

Something else appeared in the curtain as she spoke: an Ori soldier, who whipped his weapon around in disorientation as he stepped through. Buffy swore, tackling him back across; Daniel held his breath, but he could still see her silhouette moving on the other side, and she was back again half a second later.

"That's the last of the soldiers, but Adria's coming," she panted. "Dawnie?"

"Got it!" A bright green glow flashed from Dawn's hand; then her eyes rolled up and she slumped over backward. The portal collapsed at the same moment, vanishing with a thunderclap of sound.

Buffy caught her sister and lowered her to the floor; Vala knelt with her, but the others turned toward Jack and Daniel as Dawn sat back up and Buffy nodded to them that she would be all right.

Jack clapped his hands together then, staring speculatively at the group. "So... campers. I gather congratulations are in order?"

"Yes, sir," Mitchell said, brightening as he replied. "I have to admit, I had my doubts... but the ship was right where Daniel said it would be, and the weapon fit together like he said it would, too, and Dawn got the door open like _she_ said she would... there was a little last minute interference from Adria, but Buffy held her off with that other anti-Prior device we brought long enough for the Sangreal to go through. She's mighty pissed, but she's alone in the universe now, and she knows it."

Something _unknotted_ in the back of Daniel's mind, and he realized the anti-Prior device on the _Odyssey_ had just stopped working against _him_ – and that, in fact, he _did_ still have his altered abilities. Perhaps only until Merlin's original deadline. But perhaps not. "Not _entirely_," he said, forcing the restraints open with his mind and stepping down to the deck. "Her army's still with her; we'll still have to stop _them_. But she won't be getting any reinforcements."

"Daniel...?" Buffy said softly, expression as cautious as the others' as they watched him.

No one twitched a weapon in his direction this time, though, and he had eyes only for the short blonde staring back at him. "Some courting gift," he said. "I don't think I'm going to be able to top this one."

"You're not mad I didn't...?" She trailed off warily, but he got the idea.

He shook his head. "If you'd told me any more, there would have been too many associations in my mind to hide; as it was, I barely kept Merlin from figuring out there was more to it before the end. I won't say I'm exactly _happy_ that the choices were genocide for _us_ or wiping out two entire races that used to be people, too..."

"Oh, don't worry. You get used to it," she said lightly. "There's a _lot_ I should have told you."

"I thought there might be," he shrugged. "But whatever they are, your secrets can't be any heavier than mine."

She walked up to him fearlessly, took one of his altered hands, and leaned up to fit her mouth to his. Daniel savored it for a long, long moment – until Jack groaned and told them to _get a room_.

"We'd better beam down and debrief Landry," he added, surveying their motley group. "And Daniel... no wandering around until we figure out if that look's permanent, okay? Don't want you scaring the troops."

"If the troops aren't scared of him already – if they aren't scared of _all_ of you – they're brain dead," Buffy snorted.

"Yeah, well. Mild mannered archaeologist, irreverent general, geeky scientist, Jaffa revenge guy... not exactly glasses and a plaid shirt, but it worked for us," Jack smirked back. "Even the new kids are in on it; you know as well as I do that down-home Southern thing and the shiny-obsessed featherbrain tactics aren't the be-all and end-all. Little Miss Cheerleader."

She gave him her best innocent eyes at that. "What, are you suggesting I actually _was_ visiting Giles' library for the books?"

"I'm on to you," Jack warned, wagging a finger in her direction. Then he keyed his radio. "Odyssey? This is O'Neill. Eight to beam down."

The light took them, this time. Daniel smiled, feeling a little sore inside, as it swept through them... as though his heart had been dislocated and was only just now slipping back into place.

-x-


	5. By Virtue Rewarded

**Title**: By Virtue Rewarded

**Author**: Jedi Buttercup

**Rating**: PG-13/T

**Disclaimer**: The words are mine; the worlds are not.

**Summary**: B:tVS/SG-1. _"So, Daniel Jackson. You've just successfully done an end-run around the most famous wizard in history, fooled the most powerful woman in two galaxies into giving you the tools to defeat **her**, and helped wipe two meddling ancient races off the map. What do you plan to do next?"_ 1800 words.

**Spoilers**: Post-Chosen for Buffy; mid-Season 10 for SG-1

**Notes**: Finally: the long-promised epilogue-ish part of the main Grail Prophecies arc. Refers vaguely to events at the end of S3 of SG-1, which in season-years roughly paralleled the end of S4 of Buffy.

* * *

_"'In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours,  
Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers:  
Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all."_

-from "Merlin and Vivien", by Alfred Lord Tennyson

* * *

As after the end of the epic, comes the coda: sometime between their triumphal beam-down after Operation Aurora, their post-mission checkups, and their extensive and rather carefully worded debriefings, Buffy Summers spent a half hour or so sitting at her boyfriend's bedside in the infirmary.

At least, she _assumed_ that was still what he was. Even knowing what had happened to him- that he'd been in that wannabe goddess' clutches for nearly two months- the bottom had dropped out of her world when they'd beamed him up to the _Odyssey_ and he'd stared right through her as if her presence didn't affect him at all. What he'd said later, when she'd returned triumphant from activating the Sangreal- when he'd called what she'd done a 'courting gift' and kissed her like there was no one else in the room- well, that had gone a long way toward patching things back up. But there were too many questions still up in the air for her to make any assumptions.

The Daniel Jackson that she'd fallen for had presented himself as a scholar interested in the Grail legends, who just so happened to work for the military; the Buffy Summers that he'd invited to meet the team he thought of as family had been, so far as he knew, a security consultant who coached girls in self-defense and happened to have a father figure with a title and a gnarly old library in Britain. They'd both been taking steps toward revealing those secrets, little by little, but circumstances had taken the ultimate choice away from them, even as it had presented them with another.

Even if she totally ignored the fact that their entire relationship had been constructed on a framework of half-truths... there was still the way he blinked at her in startlement every time his attention slipped, as though surprised she was still there, and the way he kept almost but not quite flinching under her touch. It didn't quite make her doubt _him_ so much as it made her incandescently furious at Adria; made her wonder what he'd had to go through, that he now seemed to instinctively doubt _her_, and that was bad enough. Was the gulf that had opened between them too wide to cross?

She knew it probably wasn't the right time to ask those questions; not when he was so newly returned to them. Not when they still didn't even know whether or not he'd be stuck with the _physical_ changes Adria and Merlin had made to his body. But then, would there ever _be_ a right time? After everything she'd been through, she was very much a rip the bandages off kind of girl.

Buffy cleared her throat, feeling her way around the edges of the awkward silence that had fallen between them, and summoned up the perky aura she thought of as her cheerleader camouflage.

"So, Daniel Jackson. You've just successfully done an end-run around the most famous wizard in history, fooled the most powerful woman in two galaxies into giving you the tools to defeat _her_, and helped wipe two meddling ancient races off the map. What do you plan to do next?"

Daniel's mouth quirked in a surprised smile, and his fingers tightened around hers. "Somehow, I think Disneyland is out of the question," he said lightly, with a significant glance toward the clock. "But I'd settle for my apartment and a weekend undisturbed with the woman that made it all possible, if she could see her way clear to joining me there."

Buffy relaxed a little under the warmth rekindling in her gaze, but shook her head mock-sadly. "Oh, I don't know; I think that shows a distinct lack of imagination. If you keep the look, you keep the power, right? Do you mean to tell me you can't figure out how to fix yourself- or even manage an illusion? If so, all those legends about Merlin are even more propaganda-like than I thought."

"You really think they'd let me leave the base like this?" he asked more seriously, narrowing his eyes at her.

"You really think the cameras in here are active right now?" Buffy raised her eyebrows back. "Why do you think General O'Neill didn't want you wandering around on your own? We're already writing a novel's worth of fiction about Dawn's and my part in this; what's one detail more?"

The last thing, the absolute _last_ thing they needed was the IOA knowing that Dawn's blood was the source of 'Aurora's Gift'. They'd want her locked up under their control; and the first time they sequenced her DNA looking for evidence on how her power worked, they might uncover certain _other_ secrets that really weren't anyone's business but her own. And maybe Daniel's. Buffy wasn't a hundred percent sure, and didn't think it was a good idea to try to find out, but she'd always known that Dawn had to have at least one other genetic contributor... and when she'd read the selection of SG-1 mission files General Landry had made available, she'd discovered that Daniel had ultimately left the potentially all-powerful son of his dead wife in the care of what turned out to be an Ancient rather than see him used, right around the ball-park of the time the monks had turned the Key into Dawn. She didn't know how their Ancients connected up to the Powers in charge of Earth, but the circumstances- and certain resemblances- were too suggestive to ignore.

"One detail?" Daniel frowned, studying her face thoughtfully. "What _are_ you telling them? I had pretty much expected you to be there when it all wrapped up, once I realized the significance of that book of prophecies, but Dawn's presence was a shock- and I can only imagine how it might look to the suspicious minds on the oversight committee."

Buffy frowned back as she parsed that response. She would have expected him to be more persistent in pursuit of the truth. But then again- there'd been times when he could have asked a lot of uncomfortable questions about _her_ past, and hadn't. She knew for a fact his friend General O'Neill had run a background check on her before she'd shown up at his party, and that had to have raised a few red flags, just for starters. But had his silence only been self-preservation, to avoid being asked awkward questions in return?

"You don't want to know what the _real_ explanation is? Just what I'm telling them?" she asked, cautiously.

He looked down for a second, turning her hand over in his, running a thumb over her palm. It made her shiver; but when she met his gaze again, he was smiling at her, ruefully. "Like I told you, I have secrets of my own; I know that knowledge isn't always power. And I know _you_; you'd never have risked your sister's life if anyone else could have done what she did. I saw the green flash when she closed the portal, and I know how the bureaucracy tends to react to anyone with even a hint of hok'taur ability. So no; I don't _need_ to know anything beyond what Dawn might choose to tell me herself."

Something clenched in Buffy's gut at that, a wave of raw emotion she could hardly decipher. "Daniel..."

Daniel continued without waiting for her reply, almost as though he knew she needed time to digest. How did he even do that? She might be the one who'd read _his_ files, but he'd always been able to see through her like colored glass.

"You know, that's one of the things that infuriates me most about Adria? She has extraordinary power; but she has the same potential for humanity as anyone. I've known other hok'taur, people who developed their powers as teenagers or adults- but also one who was born with it, and grew at an accelerated rate as she did. His name was Shifu, and in a kinder world, he might have been my son. He was cursed with all the evil of the Goa'uld from _birth_, including the knowledge of what his father, Apophis, meant him to be- and he still chose not to use it." Daniel shook his head.

Buffy bit her lip, then gently detached her hand from his and climbed onto the bed with him, settling her weight over his thighs. "Part of being human is making that choice," she said, softly, taking his rune-marked cheeks in her hands. "She chose wrong. Shifu didn't." She paused, thinking over his comment about Disneyland again, then added firmly: "_You_ didn't. And you won't."

He reached up, callused fingers framing her face as he leaned forward, resting their foreheads together. "You have that much faith in me?" he asked, quietly.

"Nobody's perfect," she shrugged. "God knows I'm not. But you try harder than anyone else I've ever met. And you have yet to let me down. Worry me, sometimes; it about killed me when I first saw you, looking like that. But- do you have faith in _me_?"

The corner of his mouth quirked, and he stroked a thumb over her cheek. "What do you think?"

That was kind of a non-answer; but it was kind of enough of one, too. She'd heard Mitchell say she got farther past Daniel's defenses than he'd seen anyone else manage since he'd joined the team; if that hadn't been true- well, she wouldn't be where she was, alone with him while the clock ticked down.

Sarcastic jerk. Loveable asshole. Too much spirit crammed in too little shell: a condition they happened to share. What had she been worried about, again?

She leaned forward, matching her lips to his, and found that no matter what had changed on the outside, he still _tasted_ the same, too.

Several moments later, they sat back again, and checked the clock; the deadline had passed while they were more pleasantly occupied. He still looked the same... and a quick gesture toward the chair she'd abandoned sent it skidding across the floor.

"Well, I suppose that's that," he sighed.

Buffy snorted. "Actually, you know- maybe this isn't such a bad thing. We just knocked out the hierarchy above Adria; she can't get any more back-up, but she's still here. With a little time to practice, and some help from my people..." They _would_ have to talk about Dawn, and her own so-called hok'taur abilities; and that convo would lead eventually to Willow, who would be a fantastic asset now that they had an official foot in the door. She'd like to see what shield spells could do against the Orici.

"Right. And you were going to tell the IOA what exactly, again?"

"Ask me again later," she laughed, then leaned forward to kiss him again.

-END-


End file.
